The Naishes of Salisbury

James Naish, bricklayer

James Naish is the earliest proven ancestor on this line. In every census he gave his birthplace as Salisbury, and his ages put his birth at about 1793. His own baptism has not yet been found. Like many working men of his time, he could not write his name, and made his mark on both of his marriage certificates.

On 24 June 1819, James Nash, bricklayer, married Sophia George at St Edmund’s, Salisbury, by banns, “with consent of parents”, because Sophia was under 21. He made his mark, and she signed. This is very probably our James: the trade, the parish and the mark all fit. (A James who married Sarah Hopkins at St Martin’s in 1816 may also have been him, but that is less certain.) They lived at Maton’s Buildings, where their son Joseph was born on 23 April 1820. Sophia died the next spring and was buried at St Edmund’s on 15 April 1821, aged only 25. In 1825 James, “widower”, married Louisa Lawrence at Fisherton Anger. Louisa signed her own name. The witnesses were Thomas Lawrence, probably her father or brother, and Eliza Wise. Louisa was born in Salisbury about 1804.

James and Louisa’s children were Louisa (born 5 March 1826 and baptised at St Edmund’s, when the family was already living on Castle Street), James (1829), Elizabeth Mary (1834) and Joseph (1835). The family lived on Castle Street, in St Edmund’s parish, for at least thirty years. In 1851 James was a bricklayer there, his son James a journeyman carpenter and Elizabeth a shoe binder, and the younger Louisa was a house servant in the Cathedral Close, where she was still working for the same mistress, Elizabeth Wickens, ten years later. In old age James and Louisa moved into Hussey’s Almshouses on Castle Street, founded in 1794. He died in the spring of 1871 and was buried at St Edmund’s on 25 April, aged 77.

Still to research: James’s parents and baptism, what became of his first son Joseph, Sophia’s family, and Louisa’s family. The tree has linked Louisa to a Lawrence family of Alderbury, but the records do not support that link, so it is left off this page until it can be proved.

Joseph Naish, coachbuilder

Their son Joseph Naish was born in February 1835. In 1856 he married Jane Teague at Laverstock, the daughter of James Teague and Sarah Gambel. Joseph became a carriage builder; the 1901 census records him as a coachbuilder employing nine staff. He lived at 55 The Canal and died in March 1915, eight months after Jane.

Edward Joseph Naish, posting master and garage owner

Edward Joseph Naish was born in October 1860. In 1885 he took over the long-established posting business of H.J. Maunder in New Street, hiring out horses and carriages. By 1937 the firm of E.J. Naish occupied 67–74 New Street as agents for Austin cars, and the 1939 Register lists him, then 78, as a garage proprietor. He married Lucy Kate Goddard of Milford at Laverstock in 1883.

Their eldest son Francis Herbert Naish was a reporter for the Wilts County Mirror and died in 1913, aged 29. The youngest, Philip Charles Naish, was a motor mechanic and manager at 69 New Street in 1939.

Edward Gordon Naish, railway clerk

Edward Gordon Naish started work as a junior clerk at Salisbury station in August 1903. He married Dorothy Tizard at Great Ilford in 1918 and the family settled in Ealing, where in 1939 he was still a railway clerk. He died in Ealing in 1974.

Edward James Naish

Edward James Naish was born in Brentford in January 1924. In 1948 he married Jean Brenda Lloyd in Ealing, joining the Naish line to the Welsh families on the Lloyd and Davies side. He later moved back to Salisbury, where he died in 2003.

Known in the family as Jim, he was commissioned into the Middlesex Regiment in September 1943 and served in Italy with the 9th Manchesters near Cassino and then the 1/4th Hampshires on the Gothic Line, before occupation duty in Austria and 18 months in Egypt and Palestine. Follow Jim’s war on the map.